Matt Lohry

Don,

You are missing nothing; this is most definitely a Pratt deck truss. T-DOT’s region #1 resident bridge engineer clearly has no idea what he’s talking about.

Hence the old adage, “you can’t polish a turd.”

They must be trying to take cues from PennDOT’s “Save None Trash All” program, Tony!

You left the "O" out, Joe. Should be a "single span POS concrete bridge"!

I would classify 1950's as "just broke in". I do think that 60 years from now, when new bridges are as old as the 1950's bridges are now, they will likely be so deteriorated that they will look and feel "very old".

It’s definitely a good question— vertical members in a Pratt configuration (or most other configurations for that matter) are normally in compression, which eyebars are definitely not designed for...

I’ll take a weird old Frankenstein bridge over a new UCEB any day of the week!

This bridge is now doomed. They have no problems boldly announcing that the “reconstruction” includes replacement of the bridge with a new “concrete beam single span bridge”...translation: UCEB :(

https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/MNSTLOUIS/bulletins...

If it is not “uneducated foamers”, I’ll be sorely disappointed! X>D

I finally got to drive across this bridge on my way to Minnesota from home—it’s big and fairly impressive; but honestly, I still found the lift bridge a lot more enjoyable to cross than this one.

These photos are very interesting—the white deposits are mostly a sodium carbonate material resulting from a process called alkali-silica reaction (ASR), where the highly alkaline cement binder in the concrete reacts with the high silica content in the aggregates to form a white gel. This gel expands and cracks the concrete over time to form crack patterns in the concrete (photo #12). This process takes many decades to occur, so you normally won’t see this in newer structures. Some of the heavy white stuff running down the side of the pier might be calcium deposits from either the river water or water running down from the roadway, but the white deposits seeping from the cracks in the concrete is likely the sodium from the ASR.

The deck also has longitudinal runner planks, which is indicative of a road bridge. Also, the portal bracing is not high enough to accommodate rail traffic.

Mike,

A "mail order bridge" is a mass-produced, single-piece bridge built to a cookie-cutter pattern, welded together, and lifted into place with a crane. They are normally prefab trusses or arches and have no distinguishing features to set them apart from one another. This is one of two identical footbridges in this area; the other is about 1000 feet to the north over the same river. That bridge did not replace any previous bridge. I live around here, so I see these on a regular basis.

Label me a damn fool for thinking this bridge might be around for the long term, as it was in a park-type setting and was in excellent condition—I drove by today and saw an ugly Walmart-inspired MOB where this bridge once stood!

Leslie,

Sadly, I wouldn’t hold my breath on this one—like 99.9% of historic bridges that are “available for adaptive reuse”, it’s likely that no one will want to pony up the hundreds of thousands that it would cost just to move this monster—that $100,000 that they’re offering would likely not even cover mobilization of equipment. Additionally, building a proper substructure to support this would cost many hundreds of thousands more; I’m sure trying not to be a Debbie downer on this, but it’s looking pretty grim for this beauty :’(